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Dear Covenant Family,
We’re still in the Easter season, and last week we heard the gospel passage about the risen Jesus coming alongside two of the disciples on the road, while they were walking to their home in a village called Emmaus. Deep in grief, they were unaware it was Jesus until he sat down with them at the kitchen table and blessed the meal.
The story is a vivid reminder of how the presence of Jesus in the world often remains hidden. We catch glimpses in the kindness of strangers, the embrace of a loved one, a sunrise after a rainy night, a moment of spiritual revelation that seems to slip like sand from our hands, the blessing of a meal that feeds both body and soul, the sweet healing of forgiveness. But there are ways to hold on to the light and to remind one another of the road we are on. Coming to church is one of those ways, and so is prayer, journaling, walking and photography. These spiritual disciplines are meant to help us slow down, pay attention and practice gratitude.
Reflecting on our calling to witness to the presence of Jesus in the world, Professor Eberhard Busch writes that “This kingdom is more than the church and it is more than what we now may receive already in faith. It is the removal of all hunger and of all tears, the revelation of the beautiful freedom of the children of God. We are already on the road toward it, and we are still on the road to it…At every step of the way [the church] needs the forgiveness of sins and the encouragement to take the next step—and therefore it does not become resigned at the prospect of the imperfection in which it still finds itself and that its members exhibit over and over again. Rather, in these very difficult circumstances it seeks, while sighing deeply, to do its task as well as it can “in the expectation of the appearance of the Lord.” It is precisely in this way that it makes its witness in the midst of the world.“ (The Barmen Theses Then and Now, p.59)
As we walk together in the life of faith, may we trust that Jesus is walking right alongside us.
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